How Much Does Squirrel Removal Cost in Greenwich?

The Published Price

One Figure for a Programme, Not a Call-Out

Almost every other service on this site is a treatment with a follow-up. Squirrel work is genuinely different: it is a series of visits over a period, and the published figure covers the programme.

That structure is not a commercial preference. It follows from how the work has to be done.

The Law Decides the Shape of This Job

The grey squirrel is a non-native invasive species in Great Britain. It is an offence to release a grey squirrel back into the wild or to allow one to escape.

That single fact removes the option almost everybody asks about first, and asks about for entirely decent reasons: catch it and let it go in the park. No company can lawfully offer that. If somebody quotes you for a humane relocation, they are either misinformed or telling you what you want to hear, and it is worth knowing that before you compare their price with ours.

Trapping also carries its own duties. Traps must be of an approved type used in the way they are approved for, and they have to be checked frequently so that nothing is left in one. Frequent checking means repeat visits, and repeat visits are why this is priced as a programme.

What Is in the Figure

• A survey establishing how many animals are likely present, where they are getting in, whether there is a nest with young, and what damage has been done.
• Traps sited where the animals are actually moving rather than where they are easy to place.
• The visits required to check them on the necessary schedule.
• Continuation until activity has stopped.
• A clear account of the entry point and the damage found.

What Is Not, and Why

Proofing the entry point

Quoted separately at £180, up to 1 hour, and carried out after the loft is confirmed clear - never before. Sealing a roofline while animals are still inside traps them in the loft, where they do considerably more damage getting out, and if there are dependent young in a nest it shuts them in.

Roofing work

Where the roofline damage needs a roofer rather than a proofing visit - a rotten soffit, a failed verge, displaced tiles - that is a different trade and they will quote it. We will describe what we found clearly enough for them to price it.

Electrical work

Squirrels gnaw constantly, and damaged cable insulation in a loft is a genuine fire risk rather than a talking point. Where we find it we will say so and suggest an electrician looks at it. That is not us passing the job on; it is not our trade and it should not be.

Why Acting Early Is Cheaper

Two costs grow while a squirrel problem is left alone, and neither of them is ours.

The first is insulation and cabling. Loft insulation gets torn up and gathered for nesting, and cables get gnawed. The second is water: a squirrel that has been through a roofline or displaced tiles leaves an opening that lets weather into the roof void long after the animal has gone, and that damage continues quietly.

How to Tell It Is a Squirrel Before You Book

Daytime noise is the single most useful indicator. Heavy movement in a loft at three in the afternoon is far more likely to be a squirrel than a rat, because squirrels are active in daylight and rats are not. Torn-up insulation gathered near the eaves, gnawed cabling and damage at the roofline - a lifted tile, a chewed soffit - all point the same way.

If the noise is only after dark and lighter, it may well be rats or mice, which are different services at different prices. Tell us when you hear it.

What Happens If There Are Young in the Nest

This is the question people are most reluctant to ask and it deserves a direct answer, because it affects both the timing and the welfare of the job.

A drey in a loft may contain dependent young, particularly at certain times of year. Where the survey finds that, it changes how the work is carried out - and it is the strongest possible reason not to seal the roofline first, because doing so shuts the young in with no adult able to reach them. That produces exactly the outcome nobody wants, plus a smell in a ceiling void and a job that now involves opening up plasterwork.

We survey for it before anything is placed, and we will tell you what we found. The work is carried out lawfully and humanely, and the sequence - trapping first, confirmation the loft is clear second, proofing last - exists precisely to avoid that situation.

If you have already blocked a hole and then heard activity inside, say so immediately at the enquiry rather than waiting for a routine appointment.